Former Beatle tells Neil McCormick why he's fond of the 'rock’n’roll
queen', and why he won't give up on music anytime soon.

Sir Paul McCartney was last seen in front of Buckingham Palace, performing for the Queen. His next scheduled appearance will be at the opening of the Olympics. “A couple of extremely patriotic moments,” says McCartney. “But that’s all right. I’m a patriot.”

McCartney sees nothing unusual in celebrating the Jubilee with a rock concert. “She is the rock’n’roll queen,” he jokes. “Weirdly enough, that is one of the things her reign will be remembered for. Queen Elizabeth I, we remember Raleigh; Queen Elizabeth II it’s gonna be the Beatles.”

McCartney remembers watching her coronation on TV as “an impressionable 10-year-old” in 1953. “To kids of our generation, she was a very attractive young woman, taking on this huge responsibility. She seemed very human. We all felt really proud of her. She’s fabulous. I’ve got a lot of time for her.”

The Beatles recorded McCartney’s song Her Majesty, in which he expresses unrequited love for the head of state. “It’s just a cheeky little song. It sort of sums up how things have changed, doesn’t it? You can write songs like that and not get sent to the Tower. I totally understand the republican point of view but then I think if they got rid of the royals, who are you gonna replace them with? A politician? I’m not sure that would be an improvement.”

It could be President McCartney, I suggest. “No thanks,” he snorts. “I’m way too busy.”

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McCartney turns 70 on Monday, which he will celebrate with a small party for close friends and family. “Big dos aren’t really me,” says the man who has just entertained quarter of a million people in the Mall. Arguably the most famous living musician in the world and certainly the wealthiest (his fortune has been estimated at around £500 million), McCartney somehow manages to maintain a convincing image of cheerful normality. In an era when fame has become a kind of poisoned chalice, he remains extremely approachable, friendly and informal.

Dismissing criticism of rock stars performing for royalty, he makes a very characteristic comment: “The cynical side, I totally see it, but I don’t think it’s cool. It’s just cynicism and hasn’t got a lot more to recommend it than that.”

It is not as if he has gone through life unscathed. On the personal side, there has been the death of his beloved first wife Linda Eastman, a publicly disastrous second marriage (to Heather Mills) followed by divorce, before his third marriage, in October last year, to Nancy Shevell.

On an artistic side, much of his creative output since the Beatles has been sneered at by critics. Yet there seems to have been a shift in attitude as McCartney has reached a venerable age, with releases since Chaos And Creation in 2005 attracting almost universal praise. “It’s a bit suspicious, if you ask me,” jokes McCartney. “Look, people are allowed their own opinions and they don’t always coincide with yours. As an artist you just have to keep plugging on. I know a lot of critics go 'Why is he doing an orchestral thing, or a children’s song, what’s gone wrong with him?’ But this is my life, so I’m doing these things for me. If other people like them, I’m really happy, that is the ultimate. And if they don’t, well, you can’t please everyone.”

Last month saw the release of a very handsome box set of Ram, the album he made with Linda in 1971. Critics absolutely hated it at the time, with Rolling Stone dismissing it as “monumentally irrelevant”, perhaps because the world expected something more from a Beatle than surrealist rock songs like Monkberry Moon Delight, gentle whimsy like Heart of the Country and shimmery, nostalgic pop like The Back Seat of my Car.

Forty years later, it’s hard to remember what the fuss was about. The production is fantastic, elevating McCartney’s innate melodiousness with vibrant guitar tones and gorgeously interwoven harmonies, and the songs are spirited and joyful.

“We were having a lot of fun,” recalls McCartney. “I was up in Scotland writing the album and newspapers were calling me a recluse. I was calling it a holiday. It’s got a real sort of hippy feel to it. Then we went to New York to record, it was Linda’s home town, we were working with new musicians, it was exciting.”

The album gave McCartney an American number one single with the frankly bizarre Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey, in which a melancholic ballad about a sad old man segues into a time-shifting music-hall romp about tea and “butterpies”, sung in a faux aristocratic accent.

“The butter wouldn’t melt so we put it in a pie,” quotes McCartney, laughing. “You’ve got to love that line. John and I were very enamoured with Lewis Carroll. Alice in Wonderland really grabbed us as kids, The Walrus and the Carpenter and Jabberwocky, it was a very English surrealism.

“On Uncle Albert, I was trying to blend that with something more emotional. I actually had an Uncle Albert, who, when he was drunk, used to get on the table and recite the Bible. It’s a song about leaving home, leaving your roots, and it is really very sentimental, but then it veers off into left field, just to balance up the emotional thing. Putting two songs together, I’ve always loved that trick when it works.”

It is easy to see the connection between Uncle Albert and McCartney’s recent album of covers of pre-rock’n’roll pop standards, Kisses on the Bottom.

“Aspects of these songs from my dad’s generation have caught my ear throughout my life. I really appreciate them as a craftsman in the same trade. Something like More I Cannot Wish You by Frank Loesser, it’s an elder talking to a young girl about her future, and it is beautiful, you couldn’t put it better. I have an eight-year-old daughter, and that song is kind of being sung to her.”

The biggest challenge, he confesses, was performing purely as a vocalist. “I actually started off really nervous. I thought 'Oh my God, what have I bitten off? I’ve no idea how to do this!’ But I just wrestled with it. I was using full voice at first, but that didn’t work. The secret is getting in real close. Microphones are just like people, if you shout at them, they get scared.”

He describes the album as “a romantic gesture. The timing was good, marrying Nancy, it was a special period in my life.” His record company, however, weren’t pleased with his album title (a line misappropriated from one of the songs). “The head of the label said it was like a punch in the stomach, so I had to talk him round. I told him the last time somebody said they hated the name that much was when we told them we were called the Beatles. Everybody did go, 'Ugh, creepy crawlies!’ ” McCartney is not quite ready to give up on rock’n’roll yet. “I must say Nancy and I did have some fun moments imagining me with a little pinky ring, in rhinestone, with a little glass of whiskey and soda, sitting on a high stool on stage next to the piano doing six months in Las Vegas. It’s nice to think about that for a second. And then completely rule it out.”